Business Success Advice – 8 Questions you Must Ask Yourself to Succeed Part 2

In part 1 of this article we tackled four questions that tackled some of the most common problems faced by entrepreneurs. If you have not read that part yet, go read it now before you continue.

In today’s part we wrap up this article with the last four questions that will make you look at your business with a completely new set of eyes. It will allow you to grab the bull by the horns and strengthen your business and create an even greater path to profits.

By the time you have answered all eight questions to yourself you will be able to take a step back and see your goals and the path to them much more clearly where ever before. So lets get started…

5. Can Your Customers Become Your Sales Team?

This is something that many businesses overlook. Your customers can actually be your best sales force.

Outside of such things as word-of-mouth advertising, you can actually create an incentive for your customers to promote your business directly to others who need your products or services.

This could be in the form of a finder’s fee or a discount on your particular goods or services. This makes it a win-win situation for both you and your customer and has two effects. First, your customer will be more loyal to you and come back to you to buy your goods or services to employ that discount. Secondly, they will be very vocal in recommending you where possible to new potential clients and customers.

Now, if you have hundreds of customers or clients that can create a massive flood of new business. So think about how you can create that new relationship with your customers and how that will help grow your business.

6. What Do Millionaires Do Differently?

One thing I always recommend to my clients is to put themselves in the shoes of Donald Trump. Love him or hate him, the man is a great businessman. Now, you can use any role model you like, the end goal is the same. In any particular business decision-making process, just ask yourself, “What would they do?”

Sometimes when it comes to decisions, we are too close to a problem to really solve it objectively. Taking a step back and looking at it with a ruthless top businessmen’s perspective can help clear away the fog that may be preventing you from making the right decision.

Changing your mindset to the “Millionaire’s Mindset” can really help you focus on the things important to business. Even if you are a one-person operation, it will help you motivate yourself and move towards more profits and greater success.

So remember WWDD, “What Would Donald Do?”

7. Are You a Jack of All Trades and Mastering None?

Another limitation of the small business owner is born out of necessity. When we first create a business we have to be the salesman, the manager, the accountant, the human resource department, the customer service department, and everything in between.

However, there comes on the time when we cannot do everything, and again, we have to take a step back and focus on the things that the most important.

This is especially true if you are still a one-person operation. If there are tasks that take away from your productivity and profits, but must be done regardless, find a way to outsource it.

Any task that takes away from your ability to create sales and profits is a waste of your valuable time and you can often be better served delegating that to others.

Consider this, you want to create a new ad for your business. So you sit down in Photoshop and struggle to create something that you’re happy with (because you do not have the years of experience that others have). It takes you to eight hours until you have something you reasonably happy with and this it will do.

Now assume that your time is worth $100 an hour. That ad just cost you $800 and probably doesn’t look as good as a professional graphics desi artist could do in under 30 minutes for about $50.

The truth is, we have to do what we can with what we have. However, there comes a time when we have to delegate tasks to others who are better suited to the job so we can do what we do best, make money.

8. Do You Know Where the Money Is?

Finally, wrapping up this article, I want to ask you one last question. “Do you know where the money is?”

Hopefully, you know the answer to this question otherwise it would be difficult to be in business and stay in business. However, it is not unusual to lose sight of that goal. With so many distractions placed upon a business person’s shoulders with the day-to-day running of the business, it is all too easy to let profits slip through your fingers.

All of the previous questions have one goal in mind, focusing you on your success and profits. If you know where the money is, then you’ll sole purpose is to generate that profit for your business and anything else that prevents you from attaining that profit needs to be dealt with ruthlessly and with decisive action.

I hope this article has helped you gain a fresh perspective on your current business. Take a few moments to go through each one of these questions and see how it relates to current business.

I sincerely hope that you take those answers and take a step back from your business to see how they relate to your current situation and how, with minor adaptions of what you do, will help you strengthen your business, grow your business, and profit from a business.

If you have any questions or comments, I would certainly love to hear from you. So, just leave a comment below and I look forward to reading them.

About Sean Donahoe

Sean is one of the most recognized industry leaders in business and marketing. As a popular speaker, author, consultant he has helped over 50,000 students world wide find success in their businesses and has consulted with Fortune 500 companies and businesses of every size grow and thrive...